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December News Letter & Christmas Wishes
Hertford Youth
Games 2012
The 8th July will see over 1,000 young people
competing across a range of sports at the Sport Village Hatfield. For the first time Bowls will be in the Games and ten schools
for the 10 District Councils will be competing at the De Havilland bowls club. This is a new venture that requires schools
to take part in a 6-8 week coaching programme with the Herts. coaching team. The challenge is to fire up the 14 to 18 year
olds for this after school activity. Success will open the door, a little wider, for schools to take bowls into their PE activities.
Birchwood High, Dame Alice Owens, Onslow St. Audrey’s school have signed-up with visits planned with Cheshunt and Stevenage
schools.It is also hoped that the pathway
of Olympic Touch, through Hertfordshire on the 8th July, will come through Hatfield ‘close-to the Games’
The Bowls4Free initiative has contributed to the recruiting of over
200 new
bowlers in 15 Hertfordshire bowls clubs. These were the clubs to actively
participate with the HBDA by achieving
the target of 10 or more new bowlers.
Each club has received up to £350 to cover the cost of advertising, coaching,
essential equipment and providing hospitality to those attending the 4 x 2 hr.
coaching sessions. The support of the HBDA
team continues into the Indoor
session and on into the Outdoor bowls session in 2012.
Wroxham Primary School in Potters
Bar, Hertfordshire completed a four session 'appreciation of bowls' with the whole Year 4 class playing on the Potters
Bar green. 29 children (9 years old) had a great time using the New Age Bowls and carpet bowls. The children
were very enthusiastic and clearly enjoyed the chance to play. Many parents came to watch their off-spring and we are
to offer an invitation for them to come back and ‘try their hand’ at bowls.
Bowls4Free
is helping in the recruitment of new bowlers in Hertfordshire.
Sixteen clubs have recorded a total of 136
signed-up new members with
a further 49 people still in the ‘trials’ stage.
Not all the clubs
have qualified for BDA funding as they have not reached
the minimum requirement of 10 new bowlers.
The project
to help clubs is on-going and the HBDA will continue to work
in support of all clubs who wish to increase their membership.
 Bowls4Free course sponsored by the Bowls Development Alliance, was run at Hitchin Bowls Clubs Bancroft
bowling greens over four Saturdays from 7th to 28th May. These has proved a runaway success. Following an item that appeared in the Comet newspaper after week
1, attending numbers swelled from 14 participants to 20+ participants by weeks 2,3 & 4. There has been
fresh interest every week with new people asking to join in on the course, supported by the " Hitchin" spot in the
Comet "Town and Around" each week.
Such is the
degree of interest that Hitchin Bowls Club have now extended their Bowls4Free sessions for 2 more weeks on Saturday 4th
& 11th June in order that late joiners can have the benefit of a full four weeks introduction to bowling.
Hitchin Bowls Club has been at Bancroft bowling
greens since 1929, initially as a men only club and became a mixed club in 2001. A comment from a group of new bowlers reluctantly leaving the bowling
green last Saturday morning was "hasn't this morning been such great fun".
Have Mat Will
Travel, the National BDA initiative, was held, with great success, at the Howard Centre WGC Hertfordshire on Saturday
2nd April. 150 'shoppers' tried bowling on the short mat. Also 100 'shoppers' gave their contact details before
leaving. Once run in other intervention areas the demand of the Van will be great. Susan Cooper leads for the HMWT.
Three Workshops, covering the South, West and East Divisions 54 clubs, have been held and their success will
be reviewed at the end of the outdoor bowls season; in terms of the number of new bowlers and retained bowlers. Next
up is a workshop being planned for the North Division clubs.
More than 10 clubs are signed up to the Bowls4Free
project and the first request for the reimbursement if costs incurred has been received by the HBDA.
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